It is not the daily occurrence that physicists from entirely different fields closely work together. However, in theoretical physics a general ansatz can offer solutions for a large variety of problems. A team of scientists from the Theory Division of Professor Ignacio Cirac at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics has now for a couple of years collaborated with theorists from the field of particle physics, in order to find a new and simplified formulation of lattice gauge theories. (Physical Review X 7, 28 November 2017)